Big plans, bigger dreams

By N Geetha , November 15, 2003

Almost nine months after taking over IBM's hard disk business, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST) has woken up to market realities It is seeking to create mind share among channels "We have a strong presence among OEMs and now are looking at tapping the channels space, which sells a majority of drives for desktops and notebooks," said Shiv Shivaji, Hitachi's director (Sales Management & business development)

As a beginning, it has appointed a second distributor Cyberstar, the first being Spectra Innovations Cyberstar will sell its range of drives such as DeskStar, Travel Star, UltraThin and micro drives To see growth, it is rolling out Value Partner program for its second-tier partners, to be roped in by Cyberstar Registered partners will avail of access to support centers located outside Taiwan, Japan, US and UK, which are mainly system integration test (SIT) labs

Cyberstar on its part will appoint 50-70 resellers across the country The company is contemplating outsourcing a marketing agency to create brand awareness and co-ordinate with the channels But there is much that Hitachi needs to do For a first, it has a long way to go before it can catch up with contenders like Seagate, Samsung and Maxtor who not only allocate huge funds on creating awareness but also control more than 80 percent market share

Agreeing with this Shivaji said, "We will allocate funds to Cyberstar to carry out campaigns including reseller meets Moreover, we have a range of models as compared to our competitors " Hitachi sure seems to be going all out to achieve success.